Link roundup

1. Fast Company:

In the latest installment of Butterfly Effect, we examine China's cheap knockoff cell phones. After being forced out of China and India, Chinese counterfeiters brought their product to the Middle East, where the sudden availability of information had unintended consequences for the region--and for China itself.

2. Ben Wilson paints chewing gum.3. Map of undersea cables from 1901. Via.*Buy vintage maps at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. I certainly want to believe this is true:

Baseball was an important part of American life in 1887, though the rules were very different. "Batters" got their names from the wooden sticks they used to fend off rabid dogs while standing in the "batter's box."

2. And this sounds good, too:

One in four U.S. hackers is an FBI informer

3. "Battery made up of 144 potatoes powering 12 LED lights."

Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Austria (as interpreted by Kate Beaton)

Kate Beaton's latest strips feature Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Austria and Benito Juárez.*Hark! A Vagrant is 37 percent off at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Here's a slideshow showing off the Find the Future book I've mentioned a few times before.2. "In the Battlestar Galactica TV series, religious rituals often repeated the phrase, 'All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.' It was apparently comforting to imagine being part of a grand cycle of time. It seems less comforting to say 'Similar conflicts happen out there now in distant galaxies.' Why?"3. "The parts of the South [of the USA] that were generally the richest in 1860 are today its poorest."

Link roundup

1. Fascinating site I've never heard of:

At the time of Göbekli Tepe's construction much of the human race lived in small nomadic bands that survived by foraging for plants and hunting wild animals. Construction of the site would have required more people coming together in one place than had likely occurred before. Amazingly, the temple's builders were able to cut, shape, and transport 16-ton stones hundreds of feet despite having no wheels or beasts of burden. The pilgrims who came to Göbekli Tepe lived in a world without writing, metal, or pottery; to those approaching the temple from below, its pillars must have loomed overhead like rigid giants, the animals on the stones shivering in the firelight—emissaries from a spiritual world that the human mind may have only begun to envision.Archaeologists are still excavating Göbekli Tepe and debating its meaning. What they do know is that the site is the most significant in a volley of unexpected findings that have overturned earlier ideas about our species' deep past. Just 20 years ago most researchers believed they knew the time, place, and rough sequence of the Neolithic Revolution—the critical transition that resulted in the birth of agriculture, taking Homo sapiens from scattered groups of hunter-gatherers to farming villages and from there to technologically sophisticated societies with great temples and towers and kings and priests who directed the labor of their subjects and recorded their feats in written form. But in recent years multiple new discoveries, Göbekli Tepe preeminent among them, have begun forcing archaeologists to reconsider.

Via.2. So did Urban Outfitters rip off an Etsy seller? Or was her design not remotely original?3. And did Jack Kirby create all of the major Marvel characters? Or was it Stan Lee? Via.

Link roundup

1. From an overview of Tyler Cowen's life:

In 2002 he published "Creative Destruction," which argues that globalization created much of the art and music we might consider "native." Reggae in Jamaica, for example, borrowed from commercial rhythm and blues broadcasts that drifted over the water from New Orleans and Miami. The fur trade and the metal knife helped create the totem poles of the Northwestern American Indians.

2. You've seen the flying military drones, now check out the ocean-going versions.3. Charles Barkley says Nike asked him to stop being critical of LeBron James. Via.

Link roundup

1. "Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt."2. Age of Conan is the latest MMO game to go the freemium route.3. Tips on haggling.

Link roundup

1. Game of Thrones Monopoly board.2. Photo of a lightning strike above a power plant. Via.3. "Long before Russia’s femme fatale Anna Chapman fueled countless blog posts and male fantasies, Israel had a female spy whose success in her profession’s dark arts made her one of history’s most notorious honey-traps."*Buy board games at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Fascinating article about Stanley and Livingstone by Jess Nevins. (If you've enjoyed the various League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes, then you should definitely pick up his companion books.)2. Steve Wing writing about comics:

And take the Hulk. The Hulk was this rampaging engine of destruction, sure, but still, deep down, he was basically a nice guy. That is, he was the reverse of how we actually were in seventh grade, me and Rick and Jerry: all too nerdishly nice on the surface, but underneath raging.

Via. 3. First 15 minutes of L.A. Noire.4. First five minutes of Duke Nukem Forever.